New National Care Experience Programme Launched in Ireland

By Martina Dolan on April 16, 2019

The new National Care Experience Programme was launched in Ireland yesterday. A joint initiative by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Department of Health, the purpose of the programme is to develop and implement surveys of Ireland’s health and social care services.

The annual National Patient Experience Survey was launched in 2017. Over 26,000 patients have participated making over 40,000 qualitative comments on the care they received in hospital.

The National Care Experience Programme has now been established to expand the survey to other areas of health and social care and capture the experiences of people who use these services. The National Maternity Survey will be rolled out in 2020, followed by two additional surveys by 2021.

The National Patient Experience Survey will take place next month for a third successive year. All patients over 16 years-of-age or older who are discharged from a public acute hospital during in May, having spent at least 24 hours in hospital, will be eligible to participate in the survey. The findings of the 2017 and 2018 surveys can be found at patientexperience.ie.

The National Maternity Survey — Ireland’s first every national survey of maternity services — will commence in early 2020. This survey will capture the experiences of new mothers from prenatal and antenatal care through to postnatal care. Women who are aged 16 or older who give birth during the survey period will be invited to participate in the survey approximately three months after the birth of their baby.